My History

Links to recent years

Since I retired, I have been maintaining sort of a travel and opinion log.  It started out as primarily travel but has evolved to primarily opinion.

This is the outline of my future autobiography. Although text is sparse, the sequence of events and the tone is set for me to outline my book.

People

I started to put the People section as one of the Home Page buttons. I reconsidered and moved it here instead. It is less obtrusive here. I was afraid all sorts of vultures and rude people would be looking up the people I mention and saying bad things to them or me. So if you have a real interest in people who are my friends, press the People button and read on. If you are a vulture or a rude person, please go away.

Caveat

This is not a factual history of my life.  I am unable to do that.  This is my life as I remember it.  A couple times I changed the names of people to try to protect them if they are still alive.  Many things that I remember are through my eyes only.  I attempt to be accurate and complete but this is through my eyes.  We all know that eye witness accounts are the worst form of evidence in a trial.  People neither see nor remember the actual events.  They see what their mind tells them they see.  They remember what they want to remember.

I received an email from a woman I knew who says she spent four hours tearing apart part of the history and finding contradictions in my feelings -- toward someone other than herself.  She wrote me her transcript!  The earlier years of this history are reported as I best remember them.  The later years are more of a journal.  In a journal it is appropriate to report feelings towards what I see.  As the journal progresses, the feelings change.  Sorry.  I cannot write an autobiography otherwise.

If what I have written is incorrect, I shall fix it.
If what I have written offends you, I shall try to fix it.
Otherwise, it is just here.

Instant Summary

I was born and raised in Michigan and Wisconsin. We swam in water with ice in it.  From there it was too many places to live and to go to school.  Given the choice, I moved to Phoenix and I do not even visit any place it snows any more.  In fact, the sun shines all of almost every day in the Valley of the Sun (Phoenix).

The job market has since taken me to Silicon Valley (San Jose).  The sun shines here as much as in Phoenix:  The Valley would be a desert except for the Bay.  The multiple cultures here are great.  I can meet people from anywhere in the world just by walking out my front door.  I have good friends and neighbors from Pakistan, Vietnam, China, and Mexico.  The local street language is Portuguese.  San Jose was my almost permanent home: when you are not working, you cannot afford to live here.

Now I am retired and just travel around the Southwest.

Summary

I really do not like to write in complete sentences (you already know that) – so I make this one a list.  Because my ex-wife takes exception to my vocabulary, some of these pages are password protected.  Sorry.  On the other hand since much of my life still involves people who may not like being written about, this is probably a good idea anyway.

Cars

Rather than include bits and pieces about my cars, I have a separate page for them and their personalities.

Preferences

On a scale of 0 to 10 (Remember some of these memories are old and some cities changed since):

If any of my friends from any of these places is reading this, please e-mail me (button on top)!

1944-1947
East Ann Arbor, Michigan

This is my earliest memory.  Before Jeanne was born, my mother would walk through the development to the grocery store on the other side of West Cross (or Pontiac Road?), I was unhappy so my mother gave me the butter ration coupon to play with.  Somewhere between the back, right corner where the dairy was kept to the front checkout, I lost the coupon.  I remember my mother being distraught: my father would be angry.  That is the memory.  I can flower it up but that is all I really remember of it.  There was at least one cart in front of us at the checkout.  What impressed me of this incident is the fear of my father.

1954
Summer – Hartford, Wisconsin – Pewaukee Lake

We were in a cabin on the west end of Pewaukee Lake while my parents house-hunted in town.  Town?  my father had accepted a job at AC Electronics on the east side of Milwaukee (Prospect Avenue).  AC Electronics was a division of AC Spark Plug -- a division of General Motors.  I am always curious about histories.  You probably are not.  I wondered about the ‘AC’.  My father told me that it stood for Albert Champion.  Yes, the same man who started Champion Spark Plugs.  In any case my parents located a nice suburban area with good schools: Wauwatosa.  They had the house built for us by the Shaeffer brothers, Leonard and Jerry (their father really owned the company).

While we were at the cottage on the lake, there was no plumbing.  I carried buckets of water for household use.  There was an outhouse and we took baths in the lake.  There were bluegills, perch, crappies, and sunfish -- all jumping for the hook whenever we went down to the pier.

There was a farm next to the cottage.  One day the farmer was plowing his field and he let 3 of us boys ride on the back of the tractor.  One boy fell off and was being dragged as he held on for dear life to the hitch.  It took several minutes to get the farmer's attention as he thought we were just having fun.  When he saw the boy dragging down below he chased us all home.  I am sure we ruined his day.  Mostly it was boring at the cottage.

This last summer I drove by the area.  I could not find the cottage.  The entire Pewaukee Lake has become one large recreation area for Milwaukee.  There are homes and condos and apartments all the way around the lake.  Our little two-lane road on the west end is now a serious highway.  I am really convinced that Eisenhower ruined a perfectly good lifestyle.

Suggestions?  Questions?  Comments?  Push the Home/eMail above.

Written:  2002          Updated: April 6, 2008                Back To Top